I'm sort of the inverse of you on this one. I don't care if he's *actually* a racist...only if he's *effectively* a racist. His views are "extreme" on all counts. For that reason very few of them will see the light of day in Washington. But that's exactly the point. Very little of anything would see the light of day if he found his way to White House.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Racist, schmacist.  I like government employees like postmen, cops and firefighters.  

I don't want to live in a Libertarian wonderland.  I have a job, and I don't wanna fix the potholes on my street.  I don't want to have to generate my own electricity.  I don't want to have to pay for every damn thing, or haggle over the cost of health care or education.  I like the USDA inspecting food, and I like the FDA testing drugs.  I like CalTrans, interstate highways, and the FAA.

So Ron Paul and his ilk will never get my vote, just because he's got the right idea on Iraq and U.S. forces overseas,  a stopped clock is right twice a day.

sierra tango foxtrot uniform

Well, to be technical I doubt you'd see the USPS dissolved under a hypothetical Paul administration since it is authorized by Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.

Also, I think it is unlikely that the law enforcement and fire services disbanded as that has always been a function of the state/local level. The FBI, et al, would probably remain, although I imagine they would be responsible for enforcing a much smaller body of regulations. Which may be a good thing, since they might not spend as much time busting people for littering and smoking the reefer.

Eh, he only gets to be President for four years. I think everyone left and right agrees that after the largest expansion of the federal government in its history under Bush, the thing needs a hacksaw, not pruning shears. It's not like he's going to have either house of congress on his side.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

This is exactly why I think Paul or some libertarian candidate would be a good choice at this time. Some of his more eccentric ideas would get shot down by congress, and most of his more reasonable suggestions would be approved. Even if congress is 100% against him he could by executive order reverse much of the damage.

Can anybody actually see Obama, Clinton or McCain going ahead and voluntarily reversing the unwarranted expansion of the government and removing BushCo's sketchy laws from the books? Be serious now.

Obama, to some degree, McCain to a lesser degree, Clinton I have my doubts about.

Surfing topics, we were discussing McCain a little bit in the chat last night and I just don't know where the guy really stands on stuff anymore. He was the firebrand libertarian candidate in '00, then he patched things up with Bush and kinda got coopted. Can he be his own man? Does he have anything he really stands for? It just seems to me like Obama would kick his ass. Toss a confederate flag at him and he's toast.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Can he be his own man? Does he have anything he really stands for?

He ws the firebrand libertarian candidate in '00

When has Mr. Campaign Finance Reform ever been a libertarian? On any issue?  To my mind, McCain is fairly comfortable, and has always been comfortable, using the federal government's  regulatory powers to implement any type of policy he favors.  A major part of his problem with the Republican base is his activist tendencies.

There was a period in 2000 were McCain was cast as an Arizona "Western Republican" without much concern for the moral intrusions of the religious right. Combine that with the standard fiscal conservative that came with all Republicans pre-Bush II and "straight talk express" and you get a distinctly "firebrand libertarian" feel from the mainstream voter. Whether any of these impressions were ever even vaguely correct assertions of who McCain is, is entirely different question and was my question.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

I don't want to have to pay for every damn thing...

No, I pay, you pay, we all pay for the things that we need, that no single person has the resources to provide for themselves or anyone else.  

I do not have the time to fix my little section of the street, maintain my little section of the power grid, sewer and gas lines, and still have time to do my job with some time left over to whine about somebody, somewhere, getting something for nothing.

In libertarian fantasy world, does the earth spin slower so we get 36 hour days?

sierra tango foxtrot uniform

If you would take the time to listen to them, you'd find that a lot of libertarians aren't necessarily against the government, for example, providing education. They merely think that the federal government has no business doing it.

you mean, they're strict constructionists? ;-)

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Perhaps I've mentioned one of my definitions of a "liberal": an American who loves the Bill of Rights, except for the 2nd and 10th Amendments.

Hey, I'm all for gun ownership.  I'd be a hypocrite if I felt otherwise.  If the FBI spent as much time on illegal firearm trafficking as they did entrapping people for as yet uncommitted terrorism crimes, I'd be all the happier.

sierra tango foxtrot uniform

But the 10th Amendment you don't like?

I got no dog in that hunt.  So far so good.  I don't think regional or local entities can do the things that the FAA, CDC or FDA or USDA does, though.  Not to mention the National Parks and Forests, NOAA and the FDIC.  The list goes on.  

sierra tango foxtrot uniform

I think it's a sign of the times when a strict constructionist who is strongly in favor of devolving federal power to the states is seen as extreme.  I think most of the founding fathers would have been quite comfortable with Ron Paul's positions.  Now, talk about a bunch of racists...

Sorry, but a 'strict constructionist' is not someone who favors devolution of federal power.  A strict constructionist is someone who favors the prosecution in criminal cases, and the defendant in civil cases, and adheres to the theory of the 'constitution in exile'.  

Refer to Rehnquist, Scalia et. al.  

sierra tango foxtrot uniform

A strict constructionist is someone who favors the prosecution in criminal cases, and the defendant in civil cases, and adheres to the theory of the 'constitution in exile'.

Aside from Rehnquist's throwaway comment from a memo he wrote in his youth, no person today who calls themselves a "strict constructionist" would find this definition accurate.  Strict constructionists interpret legal documents narrowly, and in Constitutional law are more inclined to find that the constitution does not authorize a state power unless it clearly allows for such a thing.  This can cut both for and against criminal defendants, although because criminal defendants have benefited most from activist Warren Court doctrines that were radically pro-defendant, strict constructionist views can cut against them.

Also, the "constitution in exile" movement does not exist; it is a bogeyman invented by Cass Sunstein.  

Huh, did I say that a strict constructionist is one who favors devolution of federal powers?  Nope.

And I quote:

I think it's a sign of the times when a strict constructionist who is strongly in favor of devolving federal power to the states is seen as extreme.

sierra tango foxtrot uniform

I said Paul was a strict constructionist who is in favor of devolving federal powers.  I did not say that all strict constructionists are so in favor, nor did I claim that the desire to devolve federal powers to the states is a defining characteristic of a strict constructionist.  I merely related the two in describing Paul's positions.  I believe the sentence is accurate as it relates to Ron Paul.  It may or may not be used to describe any other individual's position.

I would argue that these two positions are usually closely related, though not always.  A strict constructionist sticks to the Constitutional letter of the law, and is not compelled by liberal interpretations of the 14th and other amendments that tend to find federal rights where no such explicit right is mentioned in the text of the Constitution.  These federal rights in turn tend to encroach upon the ability of states to legislate in these matters.  Thus if a strict constructionist is happy with a particular SCOTUS decision, it is most likely a result that cedes more legislative power to the states.

Reading the Wikipedia entry on strict constructionism, it seems the term has fallen out of favor as it is a bit too general to describe any single approach to Constitutional interpretation.  The term appears to have also acquired a bit of a pejorative taint over the years as a means of pigeon holing conservative judicial appointees.

I appreciate your clarification.

The trouble with 'strict constructionism', for lack of a better term, is that I fail to see why it's attractive, except as a justification to ignore stare decisis in cases that you don't agree with.  In my view, it presents this kind of tautology.  "I think X decision was fundamentally flawed, therefore I can cast it aside, citing no more than my supernatural ability to know what the framers of the constitution would think about it."  That isn't very sound legal reasoning.  It sounds like crap to me.

I don't know what Ron Paul's actual judicial philosophy is, and I think it's a side issue.  Paul's Libertarian philosophy in general is what I find objectionable.  

sierra tango foxtrot uniform

Is he actually racist?  Maybe not exactly - but he certainly had no problems associating himself with racists.  I don't buy the excuse that sometimes the enemy of my enemy is my friend - you can't make those kind of alliances, even when you're desperate, because then you're beholden to those people forever.

It's a stretch to say there ever was an alliance. From the evidence above I'd go with a few decades ago RP was lax and let people whose views he did not agree with publish garbage in his newsletter. Was it stupid? Hells yeah, and he admitted it by apologizing. A mistake a few decades ago does not mean there are current alliances with white supremacists and whatnot. What evidence is there for this?

For quite a while I supported Bush because I thought that even though he associated with the religious right, he was just taking their money and support to get elected.  Eventually I came to realize that even if Bush was just using them for instrumental purposes, he still had to throw them some bones (like Alito and Roberts, or the ban on stem cell research, for example) to keep their support.  I feel the same way about Paul - even if he's not a racist, the fact that he accepted support from racists, and therefore owes them some debt, essentially means he might as well be a racist.  

This is an unfair comparison. Bush was quite vocal about his affection for the religious right. He hasn't apologized for his connections with them and disavowed them. Where is the same level of public support for these groups from Ron Paul? Has RP been going around saying he is an instrument of and on a mission from the KKK? Have there been reports from a campaign insider saying he accepts and encourages Stormfront's endorsements and money with open arms? Does his public platform seem to indicate racist leanings to the same extent our President advocates for the religious right in his policy decisions? Finally, do you really think with the number of 'mainstream' volunteers and staffers working for him that if RP was really in with the racist wackos that he could have kept it hidden for so long?

How many times has RP run re-election? If there were any truth to these rumors, don't you think it is quite likely he would have gotten canned before this point, seeing as how his district includes some metropolitan areas?

It's up to the Democrats whom the Democrats nominate, and it's up to the Republicans whom the Republicans nominate.  It is their party, not yours.  Now, if they are nice, they can invite you to play with them (as some states do), but requiring them to do that would infringe their freedom of association.

It's not tough to become a member of those parties; just check the box and sign the form.  You, however, have chosen to be an independent.  Good for you; that's a meaningful political statement in itself.  But there are consequences to that decision, and this is one of them.

It's up to the Democrats whom the Democrats nominate, and it's up to the Republicans whom the Republicans nominate. It is their party, not yours.

I see your point, but given the fact that we have an institutionalized two party system (I think you'll agree that third parties don't have a realistic chance of getting national power in the near future, or probably ever), isn't there a compelling interest to force the party primaries to be more open? Does it make sense to (potentially - it doesn't look like it will play out like this in this election, but it has in the past) allow the extreme ends of both parties to determine the candidate, when the majority of people fall somewhere in the middle? Basically, 1/3rd of the country identifies as liberal, 1/3 as moderate, 1/3 as conservative (and within those categories, there's a similar distribution of strong liberal / mainstream liberal / moderate liberal, liberal moderate, complete moderate, conservative moderate, etc.). Given that, you can easily have a result where the majority of the people (the moderate 1/3rd, plus the moderate liberal 1/9th and the moderate conservative 1/9th) prefer a certain candidate, but that candidate has no chance in hell of actually making it the general election because he or she will be vetoed by the liberal or conservative wing of the parties (i.e., what happened to McCain in 2000 and probably would have happened to him again this year if the conservative wing had a compelling candidate to rally behind). If you force open primaries, that gives the moderates the opportunity to have their voices heard during the primary process. If you keep them closed, it makes it much, much more likely that extremist candidates that only appeal to a minority of voters will make it to the general election. Given that the US system is otherwise designed to promote consensus politics and to prevent rapid / extreme change, why should we tolerate a closed primary system that actively works against those goals? Those problems, in my mind, outweigh whatever freedom of association concerns that might come out of requiring an open primary system.

I don't know how Delaware election law works, but in New Jersey you can be a "registered Independent" as well as "registered voter without party affiliation." It's probably easy to get confused when one fills out the form.